He got terribly anxious, and followed her.  All the doors were open.

As he went up-stairs, he heard her cry, “His ghost! his ghost!  I have seen his ghost!  No, no.  I feel his hand upon my arm now.  A beard! and so he had in the dream!  He is alive.  My darling is alive.  You have deceived me.  You are an impostor—­a villain.  Out of the house this moment, or he shall kill you.”

“Are you mad?” cried Falcon.  “How can he be alive, when I saw him dead?”

This was too much.  Staines gave the door a blow with his arm, and strode into the apartment, looking white and tremendous.

Falcon saw death in his face; gave a shriek, drew his revolver, and fired at him with as little aim as he had at the lioness; then made for the open window.  Staines seized a chair, followed him, and hurled it at him; and the chair and the man went through the window together, and then there was a strange thud heard outside.

Rosa gave a loud scream, and swooned away.

Staines laid his wife flat on the floor, got the women about her, and at last she began to give the usual signs of returning life.

Staines said to the oldest woman there, “If she sees me, she will go off again.  Carry her to her room; and tell her, by degrees, that I am alive.”

All this time Papa Lusignan had sat trembling and whimpering in a chair, moaning, “This is a painful scene—­very painful.”  But at last an idea struck him—­“Why, you have robbed the office!”

Scarcely was Mrs. Staines out of the room, when a fly drove up, and this was immediately followed by violent and continuous screaming close under the window.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Papa Lusignan.

They ran down, and found Falcon impaled at full length on the spikes of the villa, and Phoebe screaming over him, and trying in vain to lift him off them.  He had struggled a little, in silent terror, but had then fainted from fear and loss of blood, and lying rather inside the rails, which were high, he could not be extricated from the outside.

As soon as his miserable condition was discovered, the servants ran down into the kitchen, and so up to the rails by the area steps.  These rails had caught him; one had gone clean through his arm, the other had penetrated the fleshy part of the thigh, and a third pierced his ear.

They got him off; but he was insensible, and the place drenched with his blood.

Phoebe clutched Staines by the arm.  “Let me know the worst,” said she.  “Is he dead?”

Staines examined him, and said “No.”

“Can you save him?”

“I?”

“Yes.  Who can, if you cannot?  Oh, have mercy on me!” and she went on her knees to him, and put her forehead on his knees.

He was touched by her simple faith; and the noble traditions of his profession sided with his gratitude to this injured woman.  “My poor friend,” said he, “I will do my best, for your sake.”